The McCoy Tyler Band has dressed up to play the Freedom Rotary Club’s 30th anniversary party. Drummer Clinton Brown threw on a dress shirt, and upright bassist Chad Bowen, the trio’s self-described “recovering jam band fanatic,” put his long hair in a ponytail with a rubber band he borrowed from the raffle table. The Santa Cruz guys—known in the local Americana scene for their serious songwriting and goofy senses of humor—have been trading glances, grinning sheepishly most of the night as they play under the fluorescent lighting of the convention center-like Harvest Room at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds. And it’s going okay, at least until an organizer steps up to the microphone after their second set.
“Let’s hear it for the Colt McCoy Band!” he says.
Colt McCoy is a former backup quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. This is a perfect example of a frustrating, though not uncommon, moment for any band trying to make it. But as the three men jog down the metal steps off the makeshift stage for their second intermission, they can’t stop laughing.
“Well, I guess we’re changing our name,” quips McCoy Tyler, the group’s guitarist and frontman.
Tyler didn’t know what to expect tonight. Accustomed to playing shows at Don Quixote’s, he and his two band mates know occasional gigs like these do come with the territory, and for good reason: they pay well and don’t run past 10pm. But the club members and volunteers below them chowing down on enchiladas probably would prefer to hear “Brown-Eyed Girl” and “Sweet Caroline,” not some eclectic blend of clever country ditties and moving ballads with the occasional John Prine song tossed in. “This is a well-lit room, and that’s a little weird,” Tyler admits, waiting in line for a cold intermission Budweiser. “I don’t like to see people’s disinterest.”
The band’s policy is clear, however: no more covers, no way.
“It’s a dark road. You know what I mean?” Tyler adds.
I really don’t, but the 28-year-old Brown is quick to elaborate.
“The shows I enjoy most are when everyone isn’t there to hear old covers, but is there to dance and check out new music,” Brown explains in a sincere moment for a band that doesn’t get very serious too often.
“You should just leave these chops,” bassist Bowen says, suddenly interrupting with shaving advice as he points to Brown’s face. (Bowen is also the band’s “beard coach.”) “This right here is ready to be chopped! When you’re ready to cut it, you need to spend at least a day with lamb chops, dude.”
Mixing Time
It’s a Wednesday evening, and Tyler has invited me up to the property where he grew up in the Soquel Hills—and where he now lives in a back house with his girlfriend—as the band puts finishing touches on an album they’re calling Time Machine. It could be the foundation of a new identity.
“The first one was more of folk record. We have a bluegrass-y edge,” Tyler says in the mixing room. “This album will give us more of a sound.”
Barefoot and wearing a striped V-neck shirt with a redwood tree tattoo showing on his right arm, Tyler is sitting at a desktop MacBook Pro with Logic recording software on the screen. A busted classical guitar and two extension cords hang on the wall.
Bowen, 36, is standing a few feet away cradling a mandolin. He’s also barefoot, revealing a matching-friend tattoo he shares with fellow Ohio native and local bassist Jeff Kissell. It’s a tattoo of the Buckeye State with bass notes on top of it, and it was administered by the guitarist from Miss Lonely Hearts, a local honky tonk band.
Tyler’s songwriting falls somewhere between folk, rock and country. The song themes are serious and their craft, creative—bringing in occasional jazz elements. And when he plays “To the Bone,” a new song, live, Tyler works the first four bars of “Stairway to Heaven” into the middle of an instrumental break. When he solos, he moves quickly up and down the neck, wailing and plucking his instrument like it’s a banjo. Tyler played more electric guitar on this new album, which features several guest appearances, including members of Steep Ravine and rambling songwriter John Craigie, a UCSC grad, on harmonica.
All three musicians sing, harmonizing on most songs, and their voices blend nicely. Brown—without any fancy fills—finds interesting rhythms and keeps a fun interplay with Tyler.
McCoy Tyler Band, which averaged more than a show per week last year, plays Don Quixote’s this Friday and will also be playing the Do It Ourselves Festival at Camp Krem in Boulder Creek next month. In live concerts, the group prides itself on getting a lot of sound out of three people, speeding up and slowing tempo seamlessly while playing complex arrangements.
New fans sometimes compare the group to Crosby, Stills and Nash or Paul Simon, but a specific genre is difficult to pin down.
“Chad and I have talked a lot about whether or not to pigeonhole ourselves. We call ourselves a folk band, but a lot of people would hear this and get pissed off because there’s electric guitars,” Tyler says, pointing to the tracks on the screen.
“That’s why I say we come up with our own: prog folk,” Bowen chimes in.
“We’re trying to come up with terms that encompass what we do,” Tyler says. “Like ‘California country.’”
Brown is in the next room, visible through a large glass window, laying down rhythm tracks—shakers, tambourine and a couple vibraslaps—as Tyler toys with the levels and Bowen tries to make Brown laugh. “It gets weird in here as it gets late,” Bowen says, noodling on the mandolin. “There’s a witching hour when things get silly.”
Internet Mating
The band’s antics began almost three years ago, and it’s a coincidence, in a way, that the three members get along as well as they do, since they met on the Internet.
Tyler graduated from San Francisco State with a creative writing degree in May 2011, moved home and devoted his time to writing songs. He placed a Craigslist post in the “musicians” category saying he was looking for people to play music and who wanted to sing. Brown and Bowen are the only two from the ad he ever met up with to practice.
The three of them, musically speaking, got here from different places. Brown played drums in his middle school band and later joined a Sacramento funk band with guitarist Daniel Talamantes, now a member of Santa Cruz’s Mark Twang, a country rock group. Bowen has been playing various instruments since he was eight, and upright bass for the past four years.
Tyler got an acoustic guitar from his older brother when he was 13 years old, but it didn’t see much action while he stayed busy following his true passion—dirt bike racing. But his teenage career came to an end when he broke his leg and got airlifted via helicopter from Hollister to San Jose. The injury left plenty of time to play guitar and listen to the guitar solo from “Whole Lotta Love” off Led Zeppelin II on repeat. Soon he was shredding lead guitar in a local metal band called Trigger Renegade, which played the 418 Project and the Blue Lagoon. He enjoyed climbing on top of the speakers during the encores.
“And wasn’t there a big show when you ripped your shirt off?” Bowen asks.
“Yeah, that was my big moment: playing with my shirt off with my 17-year-old chest exposed, standing on a speaker at the Blue Lagoon,” Tyler says. “I’ve always accepted I will never be more of a rock star than I was at that moment.”
What’s Next?
One way to learn more about any band is to ask members who they would tour with. It shows not just who the group emulates, but where they think they stand in terms of their readiness. In this case the three musicians cover all the bases.
Tyler mentions The Wood Brothers, his biggest songwriting inspiration—a folk duo not yet famous enough to be totally out of reach. He and Bowen also suggest Willie Nelson, whose wide-ranging career they admire—including his jazz period. They even like his 2005 reggae album.
But Tyler says, even in a perfect world, he’d probably prefer touring with local bands like Ben Lomond’s Coffis Brothers and Mountain Men—friends of his, with whom the band often shares billing.
“I would rather tour with people who care about our music,” Tyler says. “I would rather tour with people I really like. If we could just tour with Marty O’Reilly, Steep Ravine, Coffis Brothers and Miss Lonely Hearts, that would be the ultimate experience.”
Touring is a big step, though. And while Brown would love to go on a three-month tour, he says the band has more legwork and promotions left to do before everyone’s ready to put it all on the line. “If there were a way for me to pay all my bills and do this, I’d be down, but I don’t think we’re there yet,” he says.
All three musicians have day jobs—Brown for a semiconductor company in San Jose, Tyler for Sylvan Music and Bowen for Trader Joe’s. But they do have one idea for how to get out.
“We’ve been trying to court John Craigie a long time,” Tyler says. “My argument is: Bob Dylan took The Band on tour with him. We could be your band, John.”
Tyler’s band opened for Craigie twice at Kuumbwa Jazz Center and even backed him up for a few songs, filling out the solo singer/songwriter’s sound.
Craigie, who tours year-round, says he’d be up for the adventure.
“I’ve had some secret wishes to do an album with them as a backing band. They’re really cool, and they match with my sound. So yeah, anytime, man,” Craigie says. “If we haven’t already talked about that, we’ve definitely been courting each other.”
Still Tyler, who’s becoming more of “homebody,” says he might miss sitting in the mountains and building new songs. He says long, successful tours aren’t necessarily the end goal anyway.
“I want to play quality shows, and I want to have fun doing that, and I never want it to feel like work. I don’t want it to feel like a nine-to-five,” Tyler says. “The moment that happens, what’s the point? That’s the goal: play quality shows and enjoy doing it. If the money comes, that’s good.”
In the meantime, they’re working to get better. As the band prepares to release Time Machine in May, Tyler, Brown and Bowen have been focusing on their new songs—many of which they’ve only played live once. The recording process allowed the band to listen, track by track, and figure out what worked best for each song.
Now they’re sitting down and listening to the tracks trying to remember what they did—arranging their new works for the road and their CD release. That leaves the door open for possibilities and more changes.
“Going back to what I said earlier, this album will define us, but yeah—actually that’s bullshit what I told you,” Tyler says. “We’re still in flux.”
There’s always time to expand your sound after all.
“We’re going to do a reggae album next,” Bowen adds. “Willie style.”
McCoy Tyler Band plays Fri, March 28 at Don Quixote’s in Felton; $12 adv/ $15 door; 8pm.
